Bits and pieces of information about Hebden Bridge, Calderdale and elsewhere that I personally find interesting, and hope that you might too!

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

From Leila, #1

Hello after a while away...

1. I'm off away again. Bradford Uni kindly (and very unusually for thissubject) offered to defer my midwifery course due to my delayed Gaza exit, soI'm due there September next year. Confronted with an unexpected free year, Ihave travelled back to the middle east and am on my third day of an Arabiccourse in Cairo.

2. The delayed second FreeGaza boat trip hopes to happen next week with a newcargo and bunch of cool people including a Nobel Peace Prize winner andPalestinian and Israeli MPs onboard; see www.freegaza.org. And then again a fewweeks after that. I want to return to Gaza, but for personal reasons (and theArabic course) next week is probably too early for me, so I'm almost certainlywaiting to hear about following trips. I hope there ARE further trips.Otherwise I'll be kicking myself. MEanwhile my friends are still doing greatwork with our resurrected ISM Gaza, you can read their reports athttp://www.palsolidarity.org/main/category/gaza/ (The Israeli gun boats areshooting at the *shore* now.)

"Gandhi’s and King’s successors in the twenty-first century have carriedout further experiments in the power of nonviolent truth to achieve justice andpeace in every corner of the world—including, in the last two months, Gaza.The Free Gaza Movement has succeeded in breaking the siege of Gaza bynonviolent direct action. After sailing from Cypress, 44 activists from 17countries landed their two small wooden boats at Gaza Port on August 23, 2008,where a beleaguered people welcomed them. This nonviolent initiative allowedPalestinians to enter and leave their own country freely for the first time inover 60 years. As Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in theOccupied Palestinian Territories noted, it is now a question of whether thecourage and commitment of the Free Gaza Movement “can awaken the conscienceof humanity to an unfolding tragedy”.

From the groundbreaking work of Gandhi and King to the ongoing example of theFree Gaza Movement, we can discern the transforming power of nonviolence at acrossroads in our history. Having developed the means of our own extinction bywar, we are called by Truth, at the very center of our being, to turn to anonviolent way of transformation into a just and peaceful future."